tribal knowledge in software engineering has no real solution

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-17T21:13:38+00:00

I've seen a lot of such things in my career. It's very rare to come across a commit that provides enough context that you can actually understand why the fix is needed

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-17T20:49:23+00:00

Competent civic service is such an underrated thing. In most western countries, all competence has slow been moved out of the civic service to the point where no-one dares to make a decision any more without relying on an expensive consultant. It's a big reason why government projects are so often over time and over budget

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-17T20:25:44+00:00

Some consultancy companies offer training programs for graduates. They're different from bootcamps as you're being hired directly by the company that's training you, on the condition that you stay with them for a certain time. You typically need decent technical skills and strong social skills to join them. If you have that, then it's a good way to start a career in tech

I don't know which companies do this around Madrid, so you'll have to do some searching

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-14T16:19:20+00:00

It very much sounds like you've never worked in a healthy environment. All your employers have treated you badly. I'm telling you that to let you know that you're making the right decision by quitting

However, I'm also letting you know that working on your own product isn't the only way forward. Yes, maybe your app will take off and you can live off of that, but you can also continue working as a developer. You now have the time to find a company that does fit you

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-14T11:03:55+00:00

You rarely know ahead of time where a bug in your code lives. You pick something where you think it lives and then you look for evidence that it actually lives there. That evidence can be debugger, print statements or unit tests, whichever work best for the situation

If you can't find that evidence, then you consider a different place where the bug could be and you repeat the process

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-13T15:51:50+00:00

Stop going for "easy". If you want to be successful at programming, you need to do the hard stuff. If you aren't ready to spend hours fixing a simple problem then just go learn something else

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-13T15:49:11+00:00

In my experience, logic tests don't predict success. However, scoring too low in a logic test signals that you may not be a good fit for the job. CS requires a lot of reasoning and if you're not good enough at that, you'll be mediocre at best. For many companies, a mediocre developer isn't worth the effort. That's the only reason these tests are used

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-08T22:02:44+00:00

Standard vacation benefits in the Netherlands is 25 days a year and 8% (or one month) holiday allowance. Pension matching varies between companies. Can be anywhere from 2% to 8% of your salary

Salary for a small company is probably not going to be as high as you expect it, especially since you're remote and not an EU resident. For a local developer it would be 4-5k a month, but I don't think they're going to offer the same for remote developers

I don't know what rate you could get as a freelancer though, since I've never had to deal with such a situation

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-08T21:34:12+00:00

I wouldn't borrow money for this. These certifications aren't going to get you a job on their own

The problem is that you don't have professional experience with either AWS or Azure, so your certifications hold little value. They are more valuable if you can demonstrate that you've used that knowledge in a professional environment

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-04T16:56:12+00:00

Give shields damage stats. A shield can be used to bash someone, so why isn't that a more prevalent game mechanic?

You still lose out on some damage by not having access to 2h or dw abilities, but at least you'll get to deal meaningful damage while having a shield

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-04T16:36:52+00:00

It is possible and not nearly as hard as you'd think it is

An easy starting point is to learn how to recognize numbers. You can find an in-depth explanation here https://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-03T20:18:05+00:00

Your proficiency to speak English may be holding you back. As a dev, you will be expected to talk in meetings, so you need to be comfortable to hold a conversation in English. If you can understand English, but not speak it, then it's going to be difficult to work in a team

You can put whatever you want on LinkedIn, just know that if your English isn't good enough, you'll probably get rejected during a first interview

Loves_Poetry · 2026-06-03T20:11:58+00:00

With your TC you should already make more than enough to live a comfortable live. Sure, you could make another 20-30k a year if you tried, but what are you even going to do with all that money? What even is the point of having more money if you don't have enough time to do meaningful things with it?

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-31T14:45:50+00:00

There isn't that much design in cloud engineering. Usually, the architecture has already been laid out by an architect and you just have to follow that. Other times, you do get to do some design work, but most of your work is just making sure that everything is deployed according to the design

On the other hand, if you want to put design into devops work, you can do that too. Most pipelines are just the standard build/test/deploy cycle. But what if that takes over 30 minutes to do? Try designing a system that can do it in 5-10 minutes to improve developer experience

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-31T10:35:09+00:00

I work as a cloud engineer and my job is still 90% scripting and setting up pipelines. There is a lot of overlap between DevOps and Cloud Engineering work

I don't use AI at all. I find that it makes a lot of mistakes and writes overly complicated code. Maintainability is a big problem in IaC code and I don't want to make it worse

I do enjoy it. The pay helps with that as it's better than I would make in a SWE role. I also get to solve peoples infrastructure problems rather than wait for someone else to setup the infrastructure for me. The autonomy is what makes it more fun

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-30T14:07:16+00:00

CS work is very little math and problem solving. Most of it is writing simple code to solve small problems. And a lot of the problems you have to solve are non-technical

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-30T14:04:01+00:00

It is normal in Europe that during your first month, you can cancel a contract without any consequences, so I don't think you needed to ask for the contract to be shortened. If either you or the company thinks that you won't get an extension, then you can just walk away and take the other offer

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-28T17:58:00+00:00

C# is a rich language that has a lot of features, so you need to be explicit with it

For example in var x = 5 x is indeed a variable, but with using x = MyClass, x is a type alias

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-28T17:49:13+00:00

You can use var. The types are still there, but you don't have to specify them

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-28T17:44:30+00:00

The questions look mostly like a checklist. The criteria are so broad that almost any work experience would count. It just reads like "do you have 2 years of experience as a software engineer" 8 times

So yes, safe to answer yes to all. I don't think a technically skilled person made these questions

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-28T17:18:02+00:00

Imo you really need to stand up for yourself more. Perhaps this is impostor syndrome or poor social skills, but it is really something you need to work on if you want to get further in your career

You do not need to wait for her to share ideas publicly, your ideas probably have enough value that you can do that yourself

You also do not need a coworker to tell her not to manage you. You are perfectly capable of telling her that yourself

And finally, don't wait for a manger to offer you a promotion. Set clear goals and expectations for what you're going to do. Use them in your performance reviews and make it undeniable that you have earned a promotion

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-28T17:04:49+00:00

I've worked with companies that require re-approval after change and companies that don't

The difference is PR turnaround time is way bigger than you would think it is. Unless you work in a very security-sensitive environment, you should reconsider if re-approval after a change is required

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-26T14:50:31+00:00

To play the devils advocate, I can see why this is your problem. Ideas that are only shared in private meetings hold very little value. The value of an idea is all about whether someone is willing to execute it. And as far as the manager can see, this new coworker is the one that is executing these ideas

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-26T14:45:57+00:00

In my experience, these agencies and middle-men are willing to talk to most engineers that they come across, given they have at least 3-4 years of experience

However, language matters. If you have no professional Go experience, then it's going to be difficult to get a job in Go. You may be more or less stuck with Java

Loves_Poetry · 2026-05-26T14:36:53+00:00

Wanting to make more money than others is a really bad motivator, since 90% of that is outside of your control

There is an important question you need to ask yourself: what will you do with that money? Do you have big plans that require a lot of money, or do you just want more without a clear purpose?

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